Explanation: Dubbed
the "Dragon Storm", convoluted, swirling cloud features
are tinted orange in this false-color, near-infrared image of
Saturn's southern hemisphere.
In one of a series of
discoveries announced by
Cassini researchers, the Dragon Storm was found to be
responsible for mysterious bursts of radio static
monitored by
Cassini instruments
during the last year as the spacecraft
orbited the ringed planet.
The storm is now thought to be a giant
Saturnian
thunderstorm,
like storms on Earth,
with radio noise produced in high-voltage
lightning
discharges.
The Cassini observations are also consistent with the Dragon Storm
being a long-lived storm, deep within the gas giant's
atmosphere,
that periodically flares-up to produce large,
visible storm regions.